The musings of an expat

The Gratitude Challenge Week 7 and 8

Week 7 is all about one friend who I am grateful for while week 8 was all about expressing gratitude to three people.

7 is a no brainer. The woman who I am highlighting this week is Toni. We met while working for the University of San Diego. We bonded over filing and mocking law students, and our friendship is based on snark, sarcasm, and squirrels. When she finally met her soulmate, she allowed me to be the officiant.

When I need a cute kid fix, she sends me pictures of my meow

When I was terrified about walking into a meeting at Cal State Fullerton alone, she drove over 100 miles to come to the meeting and act as my council (knowing a lawyer is really handy). When my legal issues reach beyond her expertise, she hunted down a lawyer who was best suited to give me advice. There really are not enough words to express how grateful I am for her friendship. I’m waiting for the day I can repay her for her kindness.

As for week 8, this was a hard one. I’m not very good at asking for help, and I am even worse at thanking people when they do help me. I have been a bit socially awkward lately in order to avoid having to explain what happened with CSUF, so my attempts to express my gratitude have been almost painful.

The first person I expressed my gratitude to was my therapist. My sessions with her have come to an end. Obamacare does not think that mental health is important, so I have to find low cost options to get help with my depression. The city of Brea offers a service, and I was matched with a great therapist. She really helped me cope with all of the nasty things that went on in the program, and helped me deal with the fallout of being asked to leave. Had it not been for her, the program really would have broken me. Unfortunately, I am only given a certain number of sessions, and now have to hunt for another manageable program.

The second person I expressed my gratitude to was a difficult one. When I visit my doc every few months, I have to give lots of blood and pee in a cup. Having gone through this procedure often enough, I know how much water I need to drink and when to be able to handle that, and I know that the veins in my right arm are better than the ones in my left. I also know which of the nurses has a light touch, and which one can never seem to find the vein. This week, I got Nurse Ratchet. She insisted on using my left arm, and when she jabbed the needle into my arm and missed the vein, I was none too pleased. I was ready to be mean, but instead decided to thank her and tell her how grateful I was that she was able to get my blood drawn quickly. She told I must have a low tolerance for pain, and then told me how to pee in the cup properly, I feel that my gratitude was somewhat wasted on her, but I did appreciate the lesson on how to pee in a cup (turns out I have been doing it wrong for years! Who knew?).

The third person who got a little of my gratitude this week was actually more than one person. My freshman level writing course were really good sports this week. I’m a big believer of technology, and the day I need to show a video and go over some grammar issues, the light in the projector blows up. My students did not complain and settled into hearing me discuss the lectures old school style. They actually took notes, asked questions, and did the writing assignment assigned to them. I don’t know if they are actually good people, or they knew that I did not want to be trifled with, but either way, I told them I was grateful that they kept their thoughts about the class to themselves.

Now that that is out of the way I can focus on my upcoming trip to Boston. It is snowmaggedon there, so it should be an interesting few days. I don’t think I will be seeing as many sites as I thought I would, but I am still going to try and get to Harvard Square and the Boston Commons. I may even go the bar where everybody knows your name.